a quiet rush of love for life under these flowers & on these steps
to blossom every season & to look back on all our blooms of before, because life is lovely and we must collect it in every quiet way we can
WHAT I’M WEARING: CHI CHI SHONA DRESS
It’s a sacred place for me, these old wooden steps that sit in the backyard of my Mom’s house, that come summer, sigh under the bougainvillea that blooms so lavishly. Here there is always that delicious combination of shade and dappled sunlight – a refreshing recluse from the blazing heat that sinks into the fields circling my parents’ homes. Every year I’ll sit here in some way or another and photograph an outfit – the constant purple frames a girl that every season, has changed. Last year I sat here, a few weeks before embarking on a European adventure with my best friend filled with strangers and lavender fields and Italian seaside towns. Since then, an entire 365 days have flowed through me and here I am, again. With darker hair that swings shorter, a tan like every season past but underneath, a mind more calm and a life more steady. I’ve talked about this a lot recently, finding and seeking out that silent ease in life, that inexplicable state-of-mind we all quietly crave. Through the 6 years of my twenties so far, I tossed and I turned, I somersaulted through relationships, I bounced between cities and apartments, I clung to friends that weren’t so friendly, cushioned by nothing but an anxious wondering that kept me roving and wandering in all the ways I did. I haven’t reached mental utopia, hopefully one day my brain will cease leaping so violently inside my skull but since last summer, I feel rested and less riled. There is quiet up there sometimes – and that is bliss. It’s not all so chaotic. And sitting on those steps, a tradition I grab at every summer, this time with my brand new Biba – it all felt so exhilarating, to sit here every year – and to wonder what girl these steps and these flowers will see next season and the one after that and every single one for the rest of my life. Next year Biba will be a full grown pomeranian and as for me, I hope I can sit here amongst all the purple and tell you that I’m grateful for what the next 365 days saw me through. I hope these steps will hold the weight of the whole woman I will one day be proud of becoming, I hope in a few years Biba has a poodle companion and the three of us will sit here together. And maybe one day, I’ll have children on my knees as I sit here. Maybe there will be a husband. And one day, I’ll return as an old lady having lived a life so full that I need a cane to touch the flowers. I cannot wait to see what happens next on these steps. Every June for the rest of my life, I will sit here in awe, of life, of what has been and what is to come. And as the bougainvillea blossoms more beautifully every season, I hope I can too.
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